He headed towards a door at the far end, and I slowly followed. The kitchen, where he was pouring boiling water into a filter pot, was as modern as money could make it.
‘Sugar? Milk?’ he said. ‘Would you rather have tea?’
‘Milk, please. Coffee’s fine.’
He carried the loaded tray back into the living-room and put it on a low table in front of the fire-place. Logs were stacked there ready on a heap of old dead ash, but the fire, like the cottage itself, was cold. I coughed a couple of times and drank the hot liquid gratefully, warmed inside if not out.
‘How are you feeling now?’ I asked.
‘Oh... all right.’
‘Still shaken, I should imagine.’
He shivered. ‘I understand I’m lucky to be alive. Good of you to dig me out, and all that.’
‘It was your brother-in-law, as much as me.’
‘Beyond the call of duty, one might say.’
He fidgeted with the sugar bowl and his spoon, making small movements for their own sake.
‘Tell me about Alyosha,’ I said.
He flicked a quick glance at my face and looked away, leaving me the certainty that what he mainly felt at that moment was depression.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ he said tiredly. ‘Alyosha is just a name which cropped up in the summer. One of the German team died at Burghley in September, and someone said it was because of Alyosha who came from Moscow. Of course there were enquiries and so on, but I never heard the results because I wasn’t directly involved, do you see?’
‘But... indirectly?’ I suggested.
He gave me another quick glance and a faint smile.
‘I knew him quite well. The German chap. One does, do you see? One meets all the same people everywhere, at every international event.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well... I went out with him one evening, to a club in London. I was stupid, I admit it, but I thought it was just a gambling club. He played backgammon, as I do. I had taken him to my club a few days earlier, you know, so I thought he was just repaying my, er, hospitality.’
‘But it wasn’t just a gambling club?’ I said, prompting him as he lapsed into gloomy silence.
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘It was full of, well... transvestites.’ His depression increased. ‘I didn’t realise, at first. No one would have done. They all looked like women. Attractive. Pretty, even, some of them. We were shown to a table. It was dark. And there was this girl, in the spotlight, doing a striptease, taking off a lot of cloudy gold scarf things. She was beautiful... dark-skinned, but not black... marvellous dark eyes... the most stunning little breasts. She undressed right down to the skin and then did a sort of dance with a bright pink feathery boa thing... it was brilliant, really. One would see her backview totally naked, but when she turned round there was always the boa falling in the... er... strategic place. When it was over, and I was applauding, Hans leant across grinning like a monkey and said into my ear, that she was a boy.’ He grimaced. ‘I felt a complete fool. I mean... one doesn’t mind seeing performances like that if one knows. But to be taken in...’
‘Embarrassing,’ I said, agreeing.
‘I laughed it off,’ he said. ‘I mean, one has to, doesn’t one? And there was sort of weird fascination, of course. Hans said he had seen the boy in a nightclub in West Berlin, and he had thought it might amuse me. He seemed to be enjoying my discomfiture. Thought it a huge joke. I had to pretend to take it well, do you see, because he was my host, but to be honest, I thought it a bit off.’
A spot of dented pride, I thought.
‘The Event started two days after that,’ he said, ‘and Hans died the day after, after the cross-country.’
‘How?’ I asked. ‘How did he die?’
‘Heart attack.’
I was surprised. ‘Wasn’t he a bit young?’
‘Yes,’ Johnny said. ‘Only thirty-six. Makes one think, doesn’t it?’
‘And then what happened?’ I said.
‘Oh... nothing, really. Nothing one could put one’s finger on. But there were these rumours flying about, and I expect I was the last to hear them, that there was something queer about Hans, and about me as well. That we were, in fact, gay, if you see what I mean? And that a certain Alyosha from Moscow was jealous and had made a fuss with Hans, and because of it all he had a heart attack. And there was a message, do you see, that if I ever went to Moscow, Alyosha would be waiting.’
‘What sort of message? I mean, in what form was it delivered?’ I said.
He looked frustrated. ‘But that’s just it, the message itself was only a rumour. Everyone seemed to know it. I was told it by several people. I just don’t know who started it.’
‘Did you take it seriously?’ I asked.
‘No, of course I didn’t. It’s all rubbish. No one would have the slightest reason to be jealous of me when it came to Hans Kramer. In fact, you know, I more or less avoided him after that evening, as much as one could do without being positively boorish, do you see?’
I put my empty cup on the tray and wished I had worn a second sweater. Johnny himself seemed totally impervious to cold.
‘But your brother-in-law,’ I said, ‘takes it very seriously indeed.’
He made a face. ‘He’s paranoid about the Press. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘He certainly doesn’t seem to like them.’
‘They persecuted him when he was trying to keep them off the scent of his romance with my sister. I thought it a bit of a laugh, really, but I suppose it wasn’t to him. And then there was a lot of brouhaha, if you remember, because a fortnight after the engagement our mama upped and scarpered with her hairdresser.’
‘I’d forgotten that,’ I said.
‘Just before I went to Eton,’ Johnny said. ‘It slightly deflated my confidence, do you see, at a point when a fellow needs all he can get.’ He spoke flippantly, but the echo of a desperate hurt was clearly there. ‘So they couldn’t get married for months, and when they did, the papers raked up my mama’s sex-life practically every day. And any time there’s any real news story about any of us, up it pops again. Which is why HRH has this thing.’
‘I can see,’ I said soberly, ‘why he wouldn’t want you mixed up in a murky scandal at the Olympics with the eyes of the gossip columns swivelling your way like searchlights. Particularly with transvestite overtones.’
The Prince’s alarm, indeed, seemed to me now to be entirely justified, but Johnny disagreed.
‘There can’t be any scandal, because there isn’t any,’ he said. ‘The whole thing is absolutely stupid.’
‘I think that’s what your brother-in-law wants to prove, and the Foreign Office also, because anyone going to Russia is vulnerable, but anyone with a reputation for homosexual behaviour is a positive political risk, as it is still very much against the law there. They do want you to take part in the Olympics. They’re trying to get me to investigate the rumours entirely for your sake.’
He compressed his mouth obstinately. ‘But there isn’t any need.’
‘What about the men?’ I said.
‘What men?’
‘The men who attacked you and warned you off Alyosha.’
‘Oh.’ He looked blank. ‘Well... I should think it’s obvious that whoever Alyosha is, she doesn’t want an investigation any more than I do. It will probably do her a lot of harm... did you think of that?’
He stood up restlessly, picked up the tray, and carried it out to the kitchen. He rattled the cups out there for a bit and when he came back showed no inclination to sit down again.